


The Easthallow Collection

by whynottiefling



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25114975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whynottiefling/pseuds/whynottiefling
Summary: A collection of short stories set in the universe in which my book is to be written.
Kudos: 1





	1. Preface

1\. Alex is rinsing his mug when something beyond the window catches his eye: a torn, unravelled couch sitting deserted in someone's front lawn. The lights from Gas’N’Snack flirt with him from a distance.

2\. “A boy went missing in the woods.” That’s how easily it began. The cheerleaders perform a ritual in the scorched earth. The night is as dark as the ash underfoot. Genevieve wants to go home.

3\. The worst thing about winter, Josephine thinks, isn’t the absolute whiteout. It’s the silence of the snowdrifts, hushed names in her ears: forgotten obituaries and unmarked graves.

4\. “It’s this town,” Stephanie says, “It doesn’t grow on you. It grows inside of you,” with red-rimmed fingernails digging into her soft belly. “Like an old oak, all of its roots tangled up in your guts.”

5\. It seems the lucephage does not care for their presentation; they are a visitor of many realms and they had never bothered to fit in. Why should they? A predator does not obey the codes and regulations of its prey.


	2. The Watcher

Bleak silence stretches lazily across the canvas of earth that encapsulates the forest. Halfway Hollow sits in wait. Never has it been full of small, talking creatures teaching children lessons of morality – though neutrality is the nature of the land, it is a confusing and quixotic place with no signs to help those who find themselves lost or missing. The hardwoods and undergrowth change shape, places, and colours every hour. Scraps of fabric tied around trees mark secret passageways, but wander too far in and one will be met with white-painted letters on trees, paramount warning signs. The urge to stare at the sky is met with the fever-pitch buzz of cicadas; it doesn’t like to be watched.

Somewhere amidst the thicket a patch of vibrant colour rests between a child's dainty fingers. Surrounded by the bleakness of life-deserted woods, this quaint contrast was destined to catch the gaze of the one who watches; the lucephageins neck cranes so slowly to the side that one can almost hear the rusty creak of nonexistent muscle strings. A human gesture to accompany another flawed sentiment: a gift. A gift for a being which cannot possess anything else but the mindless sense of mission. Static spills from their body but in this moment, it resembles calm waves of a murky pond, rather than the violent waves of an angered sea.

They finish gathering their courage and emerge lazily from behind a thicket of trees. Their charred fingers gradually wraps around the flower – _careful, careful, do not graze the immaculate skin, do not contaminate the girl_ – and lifts it to where their eyes should be and had once been. No words may be uttered for what words could be used to describe this anomaly? What language could express the strangeness and ethereal quietness of this scene? A chuckle climbs the nonexistent vocal chords but never reaches its final destination. To be sounded would be to shatter their stoic visage. Laughter of the void is not meant to be heard. All the same, the lucephageins head tilts with a flicker of amusement and their mission continues.

A flicker of movement, and then the child is gone. The residents of Easthallow have begun to disappear.


	3. The Oracle

A concept of manners is familiar to every living creature, be they a mass of organs and flesh or a walking gateway to the other side; the lucephage pacifies the hollow, turning thorns of static into a low, soothing hum. The urge to read the oracles appearance as a sign of submission has to be swiftly smothered. This does not have to turn into a grotesque duel (not that they are afraid, they are simply interested in learning more, and there is no knowledge to gain from a dead body).

_I did not mean to wake you_ , they lie.

“Don't.” Josephine replies, unmistakably bitter. Their head cranes with what might be mistaken as surprise. “Don't lie. Not to me.”

The lucephage considers how Josephine has grown since their last encounter: call it moondust, stardust, or the glow of a virginal heart — a magnificent alabaster aura encases the oracle, a radiating transparency that should have lifted all darkness and brought back the sun. All that is vacant from her presence is the crown of twelve stars.

“Did you know? Did you know what was going to happen?” The question hangs heavy between them. The atmosphere shifts. The lucephage straightens up, contempt pouring from their every move in droning waves, flooding the decaying forest ground underneath impossibly-shaped shadows.

_We do not worry ourselves with such witless inquiries._

They want none of this heretic; they are here to do work and an undead witness is nothing but a distraction.

_Josephine Parrish. Everything has a purpose._


End file.
